When should i give up on my sugar snap peas?

amunk01May 9, 2014

Ok, first year with these so im unsure how long to keep these going? They are just now fully blooming this week and forming a few pods but about half of them have gotten some type of damage in the last week that im assuming is due to the heat? With temps like we've been having should i give up and pull the plants or wait? Heres a few pictures of the damage, its a mix between water-soaked appearance or crispy primarily located at the grow tips and tendrils.

So glad to see your photos -- I thought that it was something I'd done wrong --- mine are doing exactly the same thing. The plants are big and vigorous, but not a lot of flowers, and then suddenly got the damage that you describe. I hope someone can tell us what is going one!

I cant help with this either Alexis but I am bummed mine haven't made yet. This dry wind is difficult to get everything going. I had dreams of filling the freezer with sugar snaps. I will try again in the fall.
kim

I don't know what caused the damage, but since the rest of the plant parts look so healthy, I wouldn't give up yet. I always rip my peas out by early June anyway so that's only 3 more weeks. Now if someone else recognizes a lethal disease obviously you should rip them out. But maybe it's wind damage and the plant will go ahead and produce.

I noticed today the peas with the damage are continuing to grow beyond the damage but not flowering. However, i have some planted against plastic wiring and some against metal trellises and only the ones near the metal trellis have that damage. Has it been so hot the metal burned the plants/ radiated too much heat?
The other plants look great and are flowering/ finally producing some peas! The beans i stuck in between the pea plants have all come up in the last few days so the pea plants' days are numbered whether they decide to produce or not lol

It is hard to imagine the wire could have/would have damaged the plants like that but I am not going to say it couldn't happen or didn't happen. I've grown sugar snap peas on trellises made from wire fencing for years and years and even with temperatures near 100 degrees in early to mid- June and with plants in full sun, I've never seen the metal burn adjacent foliage.

I normally don't give up on sugar snap pea plants until they are getting hit by powdery mildew, which inevitably arrives at some point in late May or in June. Some years sugar snap peas don't really start producing a lot until after mid-May. In a good year I can continue harvesting until mid-June.

May is the hardest month in which to remain patient with the cool-season crops. If erratic weather has slowed the plants down, it is tempting to give up on them and yank them out. When I get the urge to do that, I try to count to 10 or 100 or whatever and talk myself into leaving the plants alone uand letting them produce. Sometimes they are just late, but will produce well late if given the chance.

I've raised on metal for years too and have never seen burn damage. Dawn is even further south than I am. My peas have just started producing. Memorial Day is usually "freezing peas" day here along with broccoli and strawberries.

Alexis
I haven't even gotten one yet but I keep trying. I planted more today and I know there was no point but it was my last ditch effort for this spring. I will replant this fall. I am hoping one of these plantings to get enough for the freezer too.
Kim

Mine are going crazy with blooms right now, and we've been harvesting for a little over a week. So far the harvest hasn't been huge, but it has been steady. They seemed to stall on those days our high temps were in the 93-98 degree range, but now that it is a little cooler here, they are a little happier and putting out new growth and tons of blooms. I think the rain we got, which only was a half-inch, pleased them greatly. I'm hoping this week's cold front makes them even more happy. At least our sugar snap peas aren't being hailed upon, flooded or being hit by tornadoes. As long as they are still alive and rain is falling, I think they'll keep producing for a while. The wind today did beat the crap out of them.

Kim, I always freeze some, but only about 1 year out of 3 do I put tons and tons of them in the freezer. Tim was out of town on business most of last week, so I didn't even pick them and take them into the house. I just picked them and munched on them while working in the garden---instant, garden-fresh fast food.

In the fall, you'll probably need row cover to keep them happy long enough to produce. While they tolerate very cold temperatures, if the cold temps hit while they are blooming or about to bloom, those cold temperatures can knock the blooms right off the plants. I don't cover them up at night unless we're expecting temperatures below the mid-20s. Sometimes we get a night or two like that in late Sept or early Oct, but it is more common to get them in November.

If you want to grow a variety that doesn't need to be trellised, I grew Cascadia two years ago and Sugar Lace last year, and both of them produced tons and tons of peas----more than my Super Sugar Snaps or Sugar Snaps growing on trellises were able to produce.

Because we've already had high temps here hit 98 degrees a couple of times and 93-95 more often than I can believe for May, I am worrying that the green beans won't begin blooming early enough to avoid heat-related blossom drop. Instead of succession sowing some more green beans, I'm going to plant an enormous number of southern peas instead because the heat can't stop them from producing. My mind has moved beyond the warm-season crops to the hot-season crops because it seems like we have gone from the cool season to the hot season in a very brief period of time.

My short day onions are bulbing up. It always happens at this time of the year, and it always catches me by surprise. I have to count backwards from now to the time I planted them, realize it is time for them to start bulbing up and say "okay, this is normal". All the cool-season plants I planted are doing better than the sugar snap peas, but that is not unusual. They are the most finicky when it comes to having 32 degree temperatures one morning and then 98 degree temperatures a day or two later. They don't like those crazy temperature swings. I get the best sugar snap pea harvest when we consistently stay cool and moist. This year cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as cool and moist---hence the sugar snap pea behavior.